Panel Stresses Innovation To Improve Government Efficiency

Governments struggling to meet ever-growing needs with ever-shrinking treasuries may find some help in two age-old business principles -- competition and customer service.

That was the message from some government leaders during a panel discussion in Hartford Thursday focusing on "reinventing government" to make public programs and services more efficient.

At the Key Issues Forum sponsored by The Courant at the Sheraton-Hartford, about 100 business, educational, political and civic representatives heard examples of efficiency innovations from as nearby as West Hartford and as far away as Arkansas.

But a union leader on the panel warned that without the participation of public employees, the innovations may succeed only in the short term.

West Hartford has been a Connecticut trailblazer in hiring private contractors to perform work once done by town employees, said Barry Feldman, the town manager.

Most recently, the town sidelined its leaf-collection trucks, hiring a contractor instead to vacuum raked leaves from West Hartford curbsides. Although Feldman acknowledged that this year's leaf pickup took about two weeks longer than it did with town trucks, he said the private contractor saved taxpayers $100,000.

The town also saves money by using private companies for household-trash collection, large-scale photocopying and for answering phones at the main town hall switchboard.

But Dominic Badolato, leader of the union representing state and municipal workers, cautioned that the short-term savings from privatization could be misleading. He warned that private contractors may offer bargain prices to win municipal contracts, then raise prices in future years. Badolato also said that by using private contractors, government would relinquish control of its programs, possibly resulting in shoddy workmanship or unreliable employees.

But in a question-and-answer session following the panel discussion, Reginald Smith, the state commissioner of administrative services, said contracts with unions such as

Badolato's are partially to blame for high government costs.

Smith, who was in the audience, 990 by Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, the president-elect. Under that plan, known as quality management, state employees and managers form cooperative teams to provide better services at lower costs. In addition to saving money, the program is intended to improve the service citizens get from government agencies.

The system has been met with some resistance from middle managers who are protective of their power, said Robin Huggins, a spokeswoman for the Arkansas Quality Management Council who participated in the forum. But overall it is working well and has produced significant savings, she said.

For example, the state has saved $85,000 on footwear for prison inmates, and cut the time it takes to receive a driver's license in the mail from three weeks to three days, according to a flier distributed at the forum.

But Badolato said Connecticut already has provisions for labor-management committees in many of its agencies. And they don't work, he said.

"They don't work because [managers are] not willing to share the responsibility with the employees," Badolato said.

"They don't work because the employees get frustrated because suggestions they make are encroaching on management prerogative, management powers," he continued. "And those that are in government, more so than those that are in the private sector, are not willing to relinquish that power."